Take a 'Trip to Walden Pond' at Club Passim

Thursday

Apr 27, 2017 at 5:00 AM

By Ed Symkus, Correspondent

Let’s get the name pronunciation out of the way, then go into the music: Hanneke Cassel. The first bame is much like the Jewish holiday celebrated in December; the last is exactly like the building a king lives in.

Whew! That’s better. Hanneke Cassel, an Oregon native who now lives in Somerville, did not follow the typical route of a violin player, though she started out, when she was 8, the usual way, with classical lessons. But when she comes to Passim for two shows on April 29, she and her band will be playing the genre that she eventually gravitated to: Scottish fiddle music.

“I just wasn’t into classical,” she recalled of her early days with the instrument. “I think it was because in classical I had to read music, and that was really hard for me. But reading isn’t part of the fiddle tradition; you learn fiddle music by ear.”

Cassel was 11 when, in what was probably a relief for her, her classical teacher moved away, Cassel and her family found out about a Texas-style fiddle contest in California, she entered it, and came in second to last.

“But I saw all these brilliant kids playing, and they were having a great time,” she said. “Then I saw this woman, Carol Ann Wheeler, playing in the adult division. She was very charismatic, and she announced that she was doing a fiddle camp in Oregon. We signed up for that camp, my mom talked to her about giving me lessons, and she became my private teacher.”

Along with those lessons, there were more fiddle camps. At one of them she met two fiddle players – Matt Glaser and Evan Price – both of whom taught at Berklee in Boston. Cassel was 16 at the time, and was looking at colleges. Glaser and Price talked her into checking out Berklee. She came to Boston to study there in 1996, and never left.

“I think Boston has the best Celtic scene in the United States,” said Cassel. “And it’s made of three distinctive scenes: the Irish scene, the Cape Breton scene, and the Scottish scene. And everybody knows each other.”

But back to the fiddle camps for a moment. Besides being a renowned fiddle player, who easily crosses genres, Mark O’Connor runs some camps. It was while Cassel was teaching at his San Diego location that she met cellist Mike Block (see May 5 listing below), who is now her bandmate and husband.

“We were both teaching at that camp,” she said. “I have always had a cello player in my band, and I had been looking for a cello player at that time. Then I met Mike at the camp. He had just kind of crossed over from the classical scene. He was at Juilliard (and was in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble), and was wanting to play non-classical style. Around that time he went on tour with me and he had to learn everything by ear.”

Though most of the concerts on Cassel’s current tour, which is celebrating the release of her new album “Trip to Walden Pond,” will be in trio format (guitar, fiddle, and cello), the two sets at Passim will feature a quintet.

“But for the most part there won’t be five of us playing at the same time,” she said. “It’ll be kind of like the album, where the most we have is four people playing at one time. So we’ll be switching a little bit on different songs. But it’s the one time on the tour where we’ll be playing every single tune on the album. Part of it is that because we have so many different instrumental arrangements, we can’t tour the whole band every time. But we’ll play the whole thing there, and we’ll play a couple other earlier pieces.”

One of those new songs is the light and lilting title track from “Trip to Walden Pond,” which has special significance to Cassel.

“That’s always been one of my favorite places to go swimming in the summer,” she said. “I love to go out there. When Mike and I got engaged, it was on the day after we took one of those trips to Walden Pond. So it’s kind of like a love song.”

Hanneke Cassel plays two shows at Club Passim in Cambridge on April 29, at 5 & 8 p.m. Tickets: $25. Info: 617-492-7679.

Upcoming concerts and club dates

April 30:

Brian Wilson celebrates the 50th anniversary of “Pet Sounds” with a performance featuring Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester. (7:30 p.m.)

Fiddler Darol Anger's Republic of Strings presents music from all over the world at Club Passim in Cambridge. (8 p.m.)

May 3:

The Jam-packed acoustic concert of Transatlantic Sessions is made up of Jerry Douglas, John Paul White, Aoife O'Donovan, Declan O'Rourke, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, and The Milk Carton Kids at the Orpheum in Boston. (7:30 p.m.)